Internal emails obtained through a public records request show that Flock Safety, the company behind a rapidly expanding network of automated license plate reader cameras across the United States, formally objected after a local government moved to remove its equipment and covered several of its cameras with plastic bags. The correspondence, first reported by 404 Media, offers a rare look at how disputes between towns and the surveillance vendor play out once officials try to walk back a contract.
According to the emails, the disagreement began after town officials raised concerns about the terms governing the cameras, including how footage and license plate data collected by the devices could be accessed, shared, or retained. Rather than waiting for a resolution, workers covered the cameras’ lenses with bags to stop them from recording while the dispute was sorted out, then began taking steps to remove the hardware from public poles altogether.
Flock’s Response
Flock Safety pushed back hard, according to the records. Company representatives argued that the equipment remained Flock’s property under the terms of its subscription-style contract, a model the company uses widely: rather than selling cameras outright, Flock typically leases the hardware to police departments and municipalities as part of an ongoing service agreement that includes cloud storage, network access, and software updates.
That structure means a town cannot simply keep or discard the cameras once it decides to end the relationship. It also means Flock has a direct financial and contractual interest in how, when, and by whom its equipment is taken down. The emails show the company treating the bagging and planned removal as a breach serious enough to warrant a formal written objection, rather than a routine service dispute.
Why the Cameras Went Up in the First Place
Flock Safety has built one of the largest privately operated surveillance networks in the country by pitching automated license plate readers to police departments, homeowners associations, and city governments as a low-cost crime-solving tool. The cameras photograph passing vehicles and log plate numbers, make, model, and color, then flag matches against watchlists for stolen vehicles or wanted suspects. Departments can also share access to their camera feeds with other agencies through Flock’s network, letting police in one jurisdiction search plate data captured hundreds of miles away.
That reach is precisely what has drawn scrutiny from privacy advocates, civil liberties groups, and increasingly from local officials themselves. Critics argue the network amounts to a de facto national vehicle-tracking system operating with far less oversight than a public agency would face, since the infrastructure and much of the data pipeline are controlled by a private company rather than the government bodies that pay for access.
A Pattern of Pushback
This is not the first community to reconsider its arrangement with Flock. Local governments elsewhere have paused or ended contracts amid concerns about data sharing with federal immigration authorities, out-of-state law enforcement requests, and the lack of clear limits on how long footage is retained or who can query it. What sets this case apart is the emails’ detail on what happens mechanically when a town tries to walk away: covering lenses, coordinating removal crews, and receiving a company objection asserting ownership and contractual rights over hardware bolted to public poles.
The dispute underscores a structural reality of the ALPR business model: because towns typically lease rather than own the cameras, opting out is rarely as simple as flipping a switch.
What It Means for Other Communities
The episode is likely to reverberate beyond the town at the center of the emails. As more city councils and police oversight boards field public pressure over surveillance contracts, officials elsewhere may look to this case as a preview of the friction involved in unwinding a Flock agreement — from contract termination clauses to who physically owns and removes the poles’ worth of hardware.
For residents, the underlying question remains what it has been since these networks proliferated: how much vehicle-movement data a private company should be allowed to collect on public streets, and how much control local governments actually retain once they sign on. The bagged cameras, in that sense, were less a fix than a stopgap — a visible sign of a dispute that emails show was still being negotiated behind the scenes.
What Happens Next
It remains unclear from the released correspondence whether the cameras have been fully removed, remain bagged, or have since been reactivated under revised terms. Flock Safety has not publicly detailed how it resolves similar disputes when other municipalities seek to exit their contracts, and the company’s standard agreements are not uniformly public, making it difficult for outside observers to assess how common this kind of standoff may be nationwide.
The full email chain and additional reporting are available via 404 Media, which obtained the records through a public information request.
